DOJ IG report rips former U.S. Attorney for leak designed to smear Fast and Furious whistleblower; Update: Two more Fox News reporters’ e-mails obtained by DOJ

posted at 3:21 pm on May 20, 2013 by Allahpundit

Former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, who resigned in August, admitted late Tuesday that he leaked a document aimed at smearing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson, an Operation Fast and Furious whistle-blower.

“Dennis regrets his role in disclosing the memo but he’s a stand-up guy and is willing to take responsibility for what he did,” Chuck Rosenberg, Burke’s lawyer, said according to NPR. “It was absolutely not Dennis’s intent to retaliate against Special Agent Dodson or anyone else for the information they provided Congress.”

Today the DOJ’s Inspector General released his report and found, yep, it most certainly was Burke’s intent to retaliate against Dodson for whistleblowing. The findings begin on page 17, but here’s the key bit:

We also concluded that Burke’s disclosure of the Dodson memorandum to Levine was likely motivated by a desire to undermine Dodson’s public criticisms of Operation Fast and Furious. Although Burke denied to congressional investigators that he had any retaliatory motive for his actions, we found substantial evidence to the contrary…

In sum, we found that Burke violated Department policy when he provided the Dodson memorandum to Fox News reporter Levine without Department approval, and that his explanations for why he did not believe his actions were improper were not credible. We believe this misconduct to be particularly egregious because of Burke’s apparent effort to undermine the credibility of Dodson’s significant public disclosures about the failures in Operation Fast and Furious…

We found Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.

Matt Boyle has another memory freshener at Breitbart, namely that Burke isn’t the only former DOJ employee accused of trying to smear the Department’s critics. The DOJ’s director of public affairs resigned a few months ago after Boyle revealed e-mails between her and the studiously nonpolitical 501(c)(3) Media Matters showing them colluding to attack various reporters and administration opponents. And these, of course, are “minor” scandals compared to the DOJ launching a fishing expedition of AP reporters’ phone records — which we’re now learning was even broader than first thought — and essentially accusing Fox reporter James Rosen of committing the crime of reporting. The twisted irony of the IG scolding Burke at this particular moment is that Burke, compared to Holder and his deputies, was relatively mild in how he chose to punish a leaker. I wonder if he regrets that he resigned; kneecapping a whistleblower is normally grounds for promotion under Hopenchange.

Try to imagine the tone of the coverage of Holder, with all of this as backdrop, if he served under a Republican president.

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

If you’re wondering why Rosen was treated as a co-conspirator, Politico has the answer. Holder’s DOJ being what it is, they were looking for a way around a law that would have required them to let him know they were snooping on him:

It appears the prosecutors’ statements about Rosen having potentially committed a crime were aimed at allowing them to proceed through use of a search warrant rather than a grand jury subpoena or other means. Under the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, search warrants are only available to seize journalists’ work products under certain circumstances, such as when the journalist himself or herself is suspected of committing certain crimes.

If Rosen were considered simply a bystander, prosecutors might have had to use a subpoena, which would likely have involved notice to Rosen and a chance for him to fight the subpoena in court.

“Normally such searches require the approval of the attorney general,” Politico notes, which means we can look forward to another action-packed Eric Holder press conference soon. I asked on Twitter why O continues to keep Holder around given the stench of all this; the most convincing explanation came from Philip Klein, who argued (a) that firing Holder will only fan the “Scandal!” fire and (b) that it’ll give Obama a brand new headache in trying to have a new AG confirmed by the Senate. Fair points (as is the fact that Holder knows where the proverbial bodies are buried and might not appreciate O demanding his resignation), but the drip-drip-drip may force Obama’s hand. It’s one thing to anger tea partiers with IRS harassment; it’s another thing to anger reporters by snooping on them. He’s losing an important ally, at least on this narrow issue.

Update: Via NRO, Fox News reported this afternoon that the DOJ has somehow been reading e-mails sent by two more of its journalists, William LaJeunesse and Mike Levine. They’re named in the IG’s report on Burke and Fast and Furious; scroll down to pages 11-14 for the key section. It’s not clear to me from reading it that their e-mails were obtained through snooping. It sounds like maybe Burke and Dodson simply gave the IG copies of the e-mails from their own accounts. But note the passage flagged by Shannon Bream in the clip about an “administrative subpoena.” Someone was identified as the owner of a private e-mail address without them knowing.

Blowback

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In a legal context, a chilling effect is the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right by the threat of legal sanction.[1] The right that is most often described as being suppressed by a chilling effect is the right to free speech. A chilling effect may be caused by legal actions such as the passing of a law, the decision of a court, or the threat of a lawsuit; any legal action that would cause people to hesitate to exercise a legitimate right (freedom of speech or otherwise) for fear of legal repercussions.

Obama won’t fire Holder because Obama refuses to let anyone be seen as telling him what to do. There is no way on God’s earth Obama will ever fire any of his inner circle. He sees it as being attacked by the enemy.

Keep your eye on the ball. The WH started the ball rolling on this to take scrutiny away from Bengazi. Watch what the other hand is doing. Obummer will not be connected to this, but he is neck deep in Bengazi. Keep you eye on the ball!

Any republician who votes for any bill, funding or policy that is pushed by Obama at this stage must be considered an enemy of the state as our country is under direct assault by the forces of anti-freedom.

Keep your eye on the ball. The WH started the ball rolling on this to take scrutiny away from Bengazi. Watch what the other hand is doing. Obummer will not be connected to this, but he is neck deep in Bengazi. Keep you eye on the ball!

LeftCoastRight on May 20, 2013 at 3:27 PM

This distraction, if it is in fact, can still blow up in his face. While most people would be hard put to even find Benghazi on a map, everybody in the country hates the IRS, and most people don’t like the idea of the government looking over anyone’s shoulder. So these “distractions” might have legs.

It is passing strange that Obama doesn’t take extra special care to maintain good relations with the press since he, like every other Joe Sixpack, relies on reading the newspapers and watching the nightly news to find out what is going on in his administration.

If only there was some other way for him to receive notification of what was going on in the world. Maybe Attack Watch can fire back up to fill the void.

that includes the immigration bill and Rubio. Obama wants the bill to pass. If the anti-freedom president is for it then it is a simple matter to be against it. rubio and other GOPe senators agreeing with ANYTHING Obama wants must re-examine all of their views and fight this president on every level. Hold up appointments, defund agencies invovled with these crimes. If the DOJ has the resources and time to snoop on reporters they have both too much resources and too much time. The IRS needs their funding CUT that will send a message to the agency that their actions have consequences. Let the senate dems take the heat on keeping funding for an out of control agency of the gov. Attack attack attack

Keep your eye on the ball. The WH started the ball rolling on this to take scrutiny away from Bengazi. Watch what the other hand is doing. Obummer will not be connected to this, but he is neck deep in Bengazi. Keep you eye on the ball!

LeftCoastRight on May 20, 2013 at 3:27 PM

We are engaged in a multifront war against the anti-freedom forces. Committing all of ones forces to one front would spell defeat. We must attack on all fronts. The DOJ, the IRS, the EPA, as well as Bengazi, the ATF etc. The spector article today gives a smoking gun for the IRs/Obama scandal. Placing the top people in the same room with Obama the day before the policy was implemented to target Tea party and conservatives at the IRS. Keep attacking on all fronts and when weakness is shown on the line pour your reinforcements into the breach and expand the opening. Never let up on the other fronts. Only sustained repeated attacks on all sides will rip this corrupt admin wide open. Concnetrating on one scandal will give the WH time to defend and put into place a counterattack.

Speaking of the Manchurian President, he had the honor of speaking at the historically Black Morehouse College’s Graduation Ceremony, yesterday.

Obama said,

“As Morehouse men, many of you know what it’s like to be an outsider, to be marginalized, to feel the sting of discrimination. That’s an experience that a lot of Americans share,” Obama said.

Hispanic Americans, Obama lamented, are told to “go back” home while strangers pass judgment on the parenting skills of gay men and lesbians or stare at Muslim Americans with suspicion.

Obama said that too many young black men make “bad choices.”

“Growing up, I made quite a few myself,” Obama said. “Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency to make excuses for me not doing the right thing.”

But, the president implored, “we’ve got no time for excuses.”

You mean, excuses like,

“I first learned about this [the IRS Scandal] from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this,” Obama began. “This is pretty straightforward. If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous.”

“And they have to be held fully accountable, because the IRS as an independent agency requires absolute integrity and people have to have confidence that they’re applying it in a nonpartisan way – applying the laws in a nonpartisan way.” …?

There are technological solutions to this problem. And journalists should do this NOW.

1. Encrypt your email. Its not hard. You can use very secure email protocols that the DOJ won’t be able to touch.

2. Host the email in places the government can’t get at it. Literally put the server in the news building or put it in another country that might not cooperate with the DOJ.

3. Security through Obscurity. Use odd communications protocols. Ill used technology. Programs few are familiar with and few know how to compromise much less exist. Encourage everyone to push information through alternative channels.

4. Switch your phone system over to VOIP (Voice Over IP) and encrypt it. This won’t work for regular phone calls but this is the 21st century. Tell your sources to download the required software, give them the security keys so they can talk to you, and laugh when the DOJ whines about not being ABLE to wire tap you with or without a court order.

This is how you do it people. Forget getting the DOJ to come clean or operate within their constitutional limits. We have the technology to render their snooping obsolete. They only get away with this when you use outdated technology that is not properly secured. Use the old phone system and you’re basically begging to be wiretapped. Phones are stupid. I appreciate they’re widely used and convention but they have no security and the only entity that might provide security… the phone company… will not protect you. So by all means, keep the phones so you can have a phone number. But direct your contacts to superior means of communication that are more secure and actually less expensive. VOIP generally costs nothing beyond what you’re already paying for internet access.

I could go on about this stuff for ages. I’m in IT. I see what is going on here and it makes me sick. Its very easy to secure communication in the 21st century against government intrusion so long as you’ve made SOME effort to protect yourself. If they’re able to get anything from you then its because you’re not trying. Think the DoJ could cease phone records if the only place those phone records existed was INSIDE the AP corporate office? Have fun with that DoJ. And even then, the news organization would have total control over those records up to the point when they were ceased… which would mean they could not keep records at all. Which would render any such media circus without profit.

We don’t have to wait for the government to behave itself. We can render these tactics impotent simply by taking a little personal responsibility. It requires that people do things a little different. It will involve some short term inconvenience as people learn and adapt. But the end point will be a system so hard to wire tap that the very idea of the DoJ even trying will be laughable.

Nah, nonpartisan was stinking up the Mia Love thread earlier. But, yeah, other than that it’s been quiet.

They had a rough week last week, and this one ain’t lookin’ much better.

CurtZHP on May 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM

I’m convinced the things he said on the Mia Love thread are what he is sure we believe, and he’s trying to gain some credence around here, get into our good graces. Except we’re not like that, but he’s never going to believe the truth. Instead, he comes across as the lowlife he truly is.

It’s possible the libs are going to have another week. The hits keep on coming, over and above the political scandals. I’m sure the Gosnell verdict didn’t sit well with them, either. Then he cut a deal to spare himself the death penalty, pretty much pleading guilty to get himself off that hook.

Powerful federal agencies targeting those who dare to seek or tell the truth, this should be leftist “We’re for the little guy, for the PEOPLE!” heaven.

Bishop on May 20, 2013 at 3:26 PM

It ain’t all your paranoia.

The troll overseers and organizations who know us all so well are in stormy seas right now. You know about cockroaches and light don’t you?

As I wrote elsewhere:

And you thought all those LEOs and federal agents are shopping during the day, loafing or taking graduate classes while filling out phony “surveillance reports”?

I’m glad they don’t waste tax dollars!

IlikedAUH2O on May 20, 2013 at 3:36 PM

I have been assured that if they believed they could do it neatly, I would have been at room temperature years ago. But this may have to do with activities slightly beyond posting on Hot Air, I must add.

So I wonder what national security or continuing operation type of reason would apply to spying on a Fast and Furious reporter?

oldroy on May 20, 2013 at 3:31 PM

As to Rosen, it’s likely, or at least it’s possible, that DoJ/Obama poured over Rosen’s work and when they landed on reports about North Korea, pounced on that as “national security or continuing operation type of reason” to target him.

It’s called finding something that ‘works’ to justify the ends already insisted upon.

Holder is never, ever going to be fired. If you fire him you have to give a reason, and what would the reason be besides he was involved in a scandal. As it is a physical and metaphysical impossibility for the Obama administration ever to be involved in a scandal, it just makes sense that Holder can never be fired. It’s as simple as that.

How do you attack a corrupt government? You think “free elections” matter to these people?

happytobehere on May 20, 2013 at 3:41 PM

with all the tools the founders gave us to defeat this type of government. The bill of rights gives US power. The limitations placed on the gov gives US power. Just because we have choosen for decdades not to use said power doesn’t mean they are still not there. We have elected servants in Congress who control a branch of the government we have enough senators to fillibuster anything and everything. We can bring the government functions to a standstill and cause our anti-freedom enemies to stall. We are not powerless sheep like Eruopeans. We founded a country and government that was to be limited in scope and chained to the wishes of the people not some connected eleite that think they are the second coming of Stalin or the kings of old.

as 2010 showed when you overwhelm them at the ballot box their corruption means nothing. We can and will have another conservative wave in 2014 that will take back the state governments and the local governments and put in place more conservative sin DC. And if that isn’t good enoough we will have more elections and more elections until things change and if elections are fixed or rigged and we are denied a voice and protections granted to us by GOD himself them by GOd we will fix that too.

the gloves are coming off. We are very nice and civil until its time not to be nice. Guess what it’s time not to be nice.

unseen on May 20, 2013 at 3:41 PM

Obviously, then, we’re haters like the Left keeps saying we are. And that proves it! It’s totally un-Christian to not play nicey-nice with the Left no matter they do. I bet you’d shoot an armed intruder in your own home without knowing his circumstances, wouldn’t you? What if he’s only trying to feed his family?

It would be fun if someone on our side with tech capability to do so,
strings together timestamped audio and video clips of Hussein and all his honchos from 2007 onwards, badmouthing and ridiculing FNC and their staffers,
and then run this clip at every chance they get !
Do this before Hussein reads his speech on how he will find out about this scandal by reading the newspaper next Friday .

I’m getting scandal fatigue. How many more of these are gonna break open?

myiq2xu on May 20, 2013 at 3:45 PM

It’s the Obama Administration. I don’t think you can put a ceiling on the number of simultaneous scandals.

Doughboy on May 20, 2013 at 3:47 PM

And this is only what we know about…

I imagine there is so much more as yet unrevealed if ever will be. The Left has silenced people for so long with so little as smearing them as being involved in “conspiracy theories” and flinging IRS audits their way, not to mention the employment issue in everyone’s concerns.

I spent many years wondering why there was so much hostility and cruelty among California groups toward the few Conservatives, thinking perhaps it had to mean that those few Conservatives “had issues” or whatever, when, really, what I am today more convinced of is that the Left really does destroy or try to destroy anyone not among the Left’s Progressive-doodahs.

I’d bet they closely watch EVERYONE at Fox, even the hardcore lefties like Beckel and Juan Williams. Just in case they might decide to tell the truth about something.

0bama has told the world loudly and publicly a few times that FOX is the enemy.

I’d be really surprised if 0bama / Butch Napolitano don’t closely spy on EVERYONE who has a microphone, lots of ink and paper, or a popular website where they talk about the news or politics. Just in case, ya know.

Obviously, then, we’re haters like the Left keeps saying we are. And that proves it! It’s totally un-Christian to not play nicey-nice with the Left no matter they do. I bet you’d shoot an armed intruder in your own home without knowing his circumstances, wouldn’t you? What if he’s only trying to feed his family?

Maybe it needs to, getting so big the rats in the LSM have no choice but to sit up on their hind legs and take notice.

Liam on May 20, 2013 at 3:49 PM

Unfortunately, in my experience, “the rats” only take notice when and if they see their parameters — issue and material parameters — being infringed upon by reality they despise.

Then, their destructiveness toward that reality becomes more subtle but it never disappears. I do not think that Leftmedia can ever be considered reformed, nor the Left and their various Progressive/Socialist groups and foundations and business enterprises. They just go underground but they don’t reform.

one of the universal truths of scoialists/marxists is when their ideology is threatened they will turn as a pack and destroy the present “leader” of their movement. They blame his/her personal failures on the reason of the socialist/communist/marxist failure. The longer these scandals go on the more likely the liberals in the media and in government will turn as one and rip Obama apart. If its a choice between saving the “idea” of scoialism” or saving Obama Obama will lose.

Biden will do just as well as Obama to conitnue the socialist dream in their eyes if it comes to it.

2010 was before they had the fully operational battle station to stop conservatives from assembling. How exactly do you win an election in 2014 when the entire government is in on the conspiracy to keep Obama and his ilk in power?

This whole exercise is much easier to understand when you realize the scandals are a feature not a bug. They are testing the waters for complete control. And so far the water is fine. Except for some republicans that are kicking up a fuss as usual.

There will be no negative repercussions to the enablers of these scandals. On the contrary, they will be met with open arms.

Alinsky tactics don’t work against the Left. Alinsky tactics only work against people with a sense of shame and decency. The left loves these scandals. This is how it’s supposed to work. And boy does it work. They’ll never lose again.